


Black Stone Atop a White Stone

by meli_fan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Lyanna Lives AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meli_fan/pseuds/meli_fan
Summary: Lyanna survives but it does not mean she gets to live with Jon Snow.
A story of a mother who cannot see her son grow into a man.





	Black Stone Atop a White Stone

_Never like today have I turned,_

_And headed my whole journey  to the ways_

_where I am alone._

 

_-César Vallejo, Black Stone Atop a White Stone-_

 

 

_*/*_

 

 

Lyanna is no older than sixteen when she loses him. The love of her life.

 

Not Rhaegar, she lost him long ago. He wasted his life away on a prophecy and she was stupid enough to believe ancient predictions could fill empty promises. The babe in her arms fusses, and she wonders if he knows. If the little creature knows he was not the product of love but rather of bargains and promises.

 

_It felt like love then, when I thought he would give me what I wanted and he thought I’d give him what he needed_. She tries to soothe the babe, but she fails. They’re waiting in a chamber in the Eyrie, and she feels uncomfortable, but Ned insists it was safer to travel here by ship than risk running into Robert.

 

Soon enough, the babe starts crying. She rocks him as best as she can, the small thing feeling heavy in her delicate weak health. The bleeding stopped long ago in Dorne, but fever still comes back to haunt her every now and then. His face is turned to her chest, lips searching for the breast. _He is hungry_. She has not been able to feed him, milk coming out watery and with great difficulty. She had hardly spent any time with him. She was sick, and then she wasn’t but Ned told her to pretend the babe was not hers. This was the longest she has spent with him and it was only because Wylla was busy looking for a replacement wet nurse.

 

“Hush now, they will feed you on a minute.” She whispers to the babe, and somehow, he calms down. She holds him a little closer, and suddenly, the tears start falling. She is young but she is not stupid, she knows how this will not end in any scenario where she will be content.

 

She clutches Jon to her chest, and he immediately complaints, and Lyanna cannot feel any more stupid. Her folly caused a war, and her father and brother dead, and Ned married to a woman he hardly knew, and Lyanna didn’t get any of what she wanted.

 

She was going to have freedom, and in exchange all she had to do was give Rhaegar his Visenya, a girl that Lyanna secretly hoped would look like her own mother, tall and beautiful and proud. And Lyanna would be free. But she’s not.

 

_I’m stuck in the Eyrie while Ned negotiates my destiny, with a baby who I cannot calm, without a brother, without a father, away from home_.

 

“Little sister,” Ned voice comes from the door, and when she turns, she sees the worry in his eyes. She just nods at him and he sits in the bed, motioning for her to sit on the bed next to him. “Is he ok?”

 

“He’s hungry,” she explains. “But I cannot feed him properly, we must wait for the wet nurse.” Ned gives her a sad smile and she can only shrug her shoulders. “Tell me everything.” She practically begs. Having the baby in her arms makes her so scared, and she tells herself to be brave. But she tried that already, and failed, and somehow she feels like she’s not herself anymore.

 

Ned tries to smile, but fails miserably, and Lyanna selfishly wishes he was Brandon instead. He could always make Lyanna smile. _But Brandon is dead because of me_.

 

“He has mother’s eyes, doesn’t he?” Ned says, caressing the boy’s face. Lyanna takes a good look at him, and she realizes he’s right. She had told herself that he had Brandon’s steely grey eyes, but they’re different. They’re like her mother’s. Like Ned’s and her own eyes. Dark like the clouds before a storm. Lyanna can only nod, fascinated by her own son’s eyes. _He looks like me, he really is mine_. “You were right Lya.”

 

That makes her look up, because she’s never right. She is a stupid foolish idiot, who risked everything and lost, and the Gods mercifully allowed her only one thing. Her son. “But I wasn’t. I wasn’t right about anything.”

 

“I could not hide news of you to Robert. He was desperate to know.” Ned says, frustrated. Lyanna frowns. His vision of Robert was very different from the hopeful words he had of his best friend before the war. Something had happened, but somehow, Ned would not dare tell her. “He wants to marry you.”

 

“Still?”  Lyanna could hardly believe it. Even if Ned and her agreed to hide the pregnancy for her son’s safety, she always assumed Robert would not want what Rhaegar took. A year ago, she’ would’ve raged, she would’ve complained, she’d tell Ned that she would not do it. But she was not that girl anymore.

 

“Still. But the boy. You were right, Lyanna, he can never know.” Ned says serious. “It is too dangerous.”

 

“But… Ned…” Lyanna finds herself speechless. Even with all this death, she had vaguely hoped she could go back home. And yet the Gods mocked her, because she lost everything trying to escape the cage of marriage but Robert was king now, and her cage had only become more luxurious. “Robert will notice I was with child,” it is, somehow, the first thing that comes to mind. _I am a mother_. “It…. Ned, any man could tell I carried a child, I don’t know how else to put it, but believe me any husband would notice.”

 

“You can say it died.” Ned says wistfully, sadly stroking the child's head, as if already regretting all the lies. “It will be to keep him safe. Some lies…. are not without honor.”

 

“I wanted to go home…” her voice sounds like that of a little girl, weak and obstinate and dejected.

 

“He knows you live. I cannot possibly hide that. I can only hide the babe,” Ned takes a deep breath, and looks at her and he looks so much like their father that Lyanna just can’t look away. “I’ll get him North, say it is mine with some camp follower.”

 

The words sound so foreign in Ned’s lips, Lyanna can help the laugh that comes out of her. But it’s not a cheerful one. It sounds like a terrible lie, and no one would believe it. And of course, it means her son would be raised as Ned’s baseborn son.

 

“He would be a bastard…” Her son’s eyes are open, looking at her. He is all Stark, dark hair, grey eyes. A prince that was promised. Her son.

“He would be safe, Lyanna.” Ned says, and his hand come to her face, holding it to make her look at him. “Your son will grow up in Winterfell. Play in the snow, ride in the wolfswood.”

 

“Safe.” Lyanna repeats, and Ned, she can tell from his eyes, he is promising all over again. She tries to dry her tears before they fall, and swallows all fear. “No one would believe the story of a camp follower… Don’t say anything. You come from a war. Many men leave bastards behind during wars.”

 

“I will take you to King’s Landing. Give you away to Robert. Take your son home. I promise.” Ned looks away, and she doesn’t know why. Lyanna only knows that she can no longer hold back the tears. He stands up and strokes her hair playfully like when she was a little girl. He makes a mess of it, but she doesn’t care, because it stops her tears.

 

Ned lets her be, tells her the babe will stay in the Eyrie with the wet nurse while they go to the wedding, then Ned will come back and take him to Winterfell. And Lyanna will be in King’s Landing.

 

_I will be a queen, but my son won’t be a prince_.

 

That night, Wylla tries to take the babe away so that Lyanna can sleep peacefully, but she has none of it. She wants to be a mother for one last night. She tucks the babe next to her on the bed, and he sleeps safe in her arms until he wakes at the hour of the wolf. And Lyanna does not mind the fever or how hopeless her future is, this night with her son is perfect.

 

She does not have a nice voice, but she sings him all the songs she can remember. Lyanna tells her son stories of her childhood in Winterfell and of his uncle Brandon. She tries to feed him, and the milk is watery and hard to pump, but he greedily takes it anyways. She rocks him and lulls him to sleep again.

 

The next morning, Lyanna is wrapped in furs, holding her son until she is forced to let go. And she cannot cry, else everyone will suspect, so she reminds herself to keep her face like steel. She closes the door to the chamber and rides her horse out of the Eyrie and out of her son’s life.

 

Lyanna is no older than sixteen when she loses him. The love of her life. Jon Snow.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry its sad, but I promise it won't end that way! Well it won't end SO sad.


End file.
